Perhaps not yet recognised as part of the pantheon of great breakup albums, Lucinda Williams fifth album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road is shot through with the shattered shards and fragments of a broken relationship, perhaps even more than, say, Rosanne Cashs marvellous Interiors.

Opener Right In Time is practically musky with sensuality, a lonesome remembrance of a long-lost lover. Like many of these songs it has a definite sense of place  the first two tracks both mention kitchens, rooting them in some kind of domesticity, cosy or otherwise , and three of the albums songs have place names for titles. The title track is naggingly disturbing; it seems like a sequence of unhappy childhood memories, shuffled like faded snapshots. 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten belies its Prince-inspired text message title, its warm, sumptuous vibe deepening as it shifts from an assortment of observations surrounding a dirty little juke joint where Robert Johnson plays guitar in the corner to a moment of looming emotional devastation. Drunken Angel, which opens with a dead ringer for the introduction to Maggie May, sounds as if it could be a tribute to or requiem for Kurt Cobain, but its subject is apparently one Blaze Foley, a Texas troubadour and friend of Townes Van Zandt. Theres a weary indulgence in her voice during Lake Charles, a vulnerability that surfaces again in the chorus of Metal Firecracker  All I ask/Dont tell anybody the secrets/I told you. Cant Let Go dovetails so seamlessly into Williams own material that its a jolt to discover that its a cover. Still I Long For Your Kiss aches with unsated desire, again, whilst Joys ragged, raw defiance could be the flipside of the same tattered relationship.

The production is exemplary throughout  hardly surprising with folk like Roy Bittan and Rick Rubin involved  and unobtrusive celebrity guest spots are scattered throughout the album, including appearances by Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and sometime Dylan guitarist Charlie Sexton. In fact, its a measure of the artists perfectionism that even the apparently sparse songs such as Jackson are performed by an eight-strong ensemble. Although not as great as the astonishing World Without Tears  even at its most holleringest it seems as though Lucindas holding back, as if theres a sense of polite restraint kicking in  Car Wheels On A Gravel Road is still something of a country rocking singer songwriting masterclass.